Florida Criminal Attorneys Blog

Michael Duane McMillian, who is 29, was charged with two counts of sexual battery on a child under the age of 12 (Florida Statute 794.011) this week, Florida criminal attorney John Musca has learned. McMillian allegedly discussed his activities with other individuals who were interested in child sex in an online forum or chat room. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and county officials were eventually able to track him down at his home. McMillian was arrested after being questioned and some of his electronic equipment was seized as law enforcement officials sought to strengthen their case against the suspect and possibly find evidence of additional crimes.

Under Florida law, sexual battery on a child under the age of 12, when committed by a person over the age of 18, is a capital felony. This means, in theory, that it is punishable by death. The death penalty for sex offenses stopped occurring after 1977, the year that the United States Supreme Court famously decided the case Coker v. Georgia. In that case, a man convicted of raping a 16-year-old was sentenced to death, a sentence the Court struck down because it is "cruel and unusual punishment," and thus unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.

More recently, Florida, Oklahoma, and a handful of other states pushed the limits again. Coker v. Georgia has long been read as pertaining to cases of adult rape, although the victim was a teenager. Therefore, some state legislatures sought to re-introduce capital punishment for child sex crimes. Last year, the Supreme Court took on the issue and found that the death penalty is also inappropriate for child sex offenses, in a ruling that was met with mixed reactions from the general public.

If you have been arrested for a child sex offense in Florida, contact the Musca Law criminal defense team to discuss your legal strategy.

Bobby Joe Helms, who is also known as the "Hyde Park Rapist," was convicted many years ago of committing a series of violent rapes against women in the Tampa area. Helms, who is 52 years old, confessed to 13 of the sexual attacks and ultimately spent 13 years in a state prison. He was eventually released and has resided at various addresses in Brevard County for at least the last one and a half years, law enforcement officials say. Most recently, he has been living in an apartment complex in Melbourne.

Although he has completed his prison sentence, Helms has remained on probation. He was arrested last week after police determined that he had been keeping the company of teenaged girls, including one 16-year-old girl in particular. Her parents were displeased with the situation, although both Helms and the girl claim their relationship was a mentor/mentee friendship rather than a romantic relationship, says Florida criminal lawyer John Musca. Investigators are still looking into their assertion, although that may not matter for Helms. Nis neighbors say that they spotted several teenaged girls coming and going from his home on a daily basis, but that Helms nonetheless "seemed like a nice guy" and that "none of it adds up," discussing his relationship with the young girls.

Helms is back in jail in Brevard County for violating his probation. As a condition of his probation, Helms was not to be in the company of any minors. He was placed under arrest after deputies from the Sheriff's Office observed Helms with the 16-year-old girl, whom he had met at a local college, in his car approximately a mile from his apartment.

If you have been accused of a sex crime or violation of probation in the state of Florida, contact the criminal defense team at Musca Law to discuss the facts of your case as soon as possible.

Heath Miller, a popular band teacher at H.L. Watkins Middle School in Palm Beach Gardens, faces over a dozen charges of sexual harassment, rape, and other illegal sexual contact with his students after a two groups of students have come forward to accuse Miller of having inappropriate sexual contact with them. At least four students, all between 14 and 16 years of age, have accused Miller of having sexual contact with them. One student claimed that Miller had sex with her in the uniform room of the school's band room, the Musca Law Florida criminal attorneys have learned.

Miller first attracted attention throughout south Florida when he fatally shot an intruder who broke into his Wellington home last February, according to Florida criminal defense lawyer John Musca. Miller shot 22 year old Robert Tomlin with a .38 caliber pistol after Tomlin broke into his home wielding a pistol. Local newspapers reported Miller's wife called 911 call frantically, where she told dispatchers that her husband had shot Tomlin and that Tomlin was not moving. At the time, police investigators were not able to discern a reason why Tomlin broke into Miller's house and Miller was not charged with any crimes for the shooting.

Since the recent allegations about Miller's sexual contact with his students, there has been some speculation that Tomlin's break-in was related to Miller's sexual assault allegations. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office has recently received tips connecting Tomlin to some of the alleged victims of Miller's sexual assaults, but has thus far been unable to verify these allegations. In another twist to this case, Miller's cousin Kevin Whittaker was arrested in May on felony charges of witness tampering for allegedly telling one of Miller's 14-year-old victims to "wash her clothing" to get rid of any physical evidence of a sexual assault. Miller has been placed on unpaid leave from his teaching job and has denied any wrongdoing.

The sale of drugs within a certain number of feet, often 1,000, of specific designated locations has been ramping up sentencing for nearly three decades, says Florida criminal attorney John Musca. This means that a person convicted of selling marijuana four blocks away from a middle school, even if the sale is between middle-aged adults on a Sunday during summer vacation, will likely face a more stringent sentence than a person who sold marijuana in a deserted field, miles from civilization. Proximity to schools, churches, and other locations has been a point of focus for sentencing in Florida for years, and the state legislature regularly strengthens the laws to apply to more offenders.

The Florida criminal lawyers at Musca Law have followed the evolution of these drug laws. They began to take shape in the early 1980s. Senator Strom Thurmond introduced a bill into the United States Senate proposing to make selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school a federal crime. Congress passed such a law two years later and, in 1986, many states began enacting copycat laws after the cocaine death of basketball star Len Bias. The Florida Legislature enacted its own version of the law in 1987 and in 1989 added a three year mandatory minimum sentence for selling, manufacturing, and purchasing drugs within 1,000 feet of a school.

In 1990s, the Florida Legislature changed the scope of these laws to apply to other locations, such as parks, colleges, public housing, vocational schools, day care centers, churches and other religious centers, and vocational schools. The drug-free zones were initially 200 feet, but expanded to 1,000 feet from these locations in 2003. Four years ago, assisted living facilities were added to the list. Interestingly, several studies have shown that these laws do not appear to deter drug crime in any way, and that the drug-free zones often blanket entire cities.

A Police Officer on patrol noticed a suspicious vehicle parked behind a bar that had closed for the night. The Officer investigated the car further and found the driver slumped over the steering wheel, passed out. The Officer banged on the car window for several minutes before the driver finally awoke. The Driver acted confused and unaware of his surroundings.

 The Officer asked the driver to exit his car to discuss the situation. The confused Driver panicked. He started struggling with the car door and screaming, "I do not know how!" "I do not know how!" The Officer had to assist the driver with directions on how to open the car door and exit his vehicle. The dazed Suspect climbed out of the front seat using the door frame for support. The Officer immediately smelled alcohol seething from him.

The Driver also had watery eyes, slurred speech, unsteady balance and obvious confusion. The Officer questioned the Suspect on his alcohol consumption during the evening. The Driver confessed that he had 7 or 8 beers inside the bar. The Driver refused to participate in any Field Sobriety Exercises and refused to submit to a Breathalyzer Test. The Suspect was subsequently arrested and charged with DUI.

Continue reading "Driver Passed Out in Car Arrested for DUI" »

A man from Providence, Florida was arrested today on suspicion of attempting to commit a sexual assault. Law enforcement officials have reason to believe that Dorlee Holmes, 30, attacked an elderly lady, trying to sexually assault her. The victim is 73 years old.

The Union County Sheriff's Office arrested Holmes due to their belief that he was responsible for the June 9 crime. Authorities say that Holmes came up behind the victim as she walked along Southwest County Road 245. He allegedly pushed her onto the ground. The female victim fought back, eventually managing to get her attacker off of her. The attacker ran away after apologizing to the woman. He then escaped in his vehicle.

A police artist rendered a sketch of the suspect after speaking with the elderly victim. The sketch was later used to identify Holmes. Now, law enforcement officials are investigating the possibility that Holmes was behind a markedly similar attack that occurred just over a year ago in Gainesville, in which a woman was out for a run in Haile Plantation. Like the attack earlier this month, the man drove up, left his vehicle, and attacked her from behind. He shoved the woman to the ground and exposed himself. She fought the man and eventually escaped after a violent fight. She was able to get away and contact police from a home near where she was attacked. It is too early to know for sure if the attacks are related, but the first incident has remained unsolved.

Florida law punishes certain crimes against the elderly especially harshly due to the fragile nature of the victims. For example, lewd and lascivious criminal acts committed upon or in the presence of elderly or disabled persons are codified at Florida Statute 825.1025. Lewd and lascivious exhibition in the presence of an elderly person is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Collier County Sheriff's Deputies arrested a man in Golden Gate, Florida for possession of child pornography. Jose Aguiar, 23, was charged with 23 counts of the offense, which is codified at Florida Statute 847.0135. Police throughout the state have been cracking down on the transmission of lewd images of children.

Law enforcement officials believe that Aguiar was using a peer-to-peer file sharing network to obtain and transfer the pornographic images of children. Each count of possession of child pornography is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in a Florida state prison, in addition to thousands of dollars in fines. Aguiar therefore faces a maximum penalty of 115 years in prison for the images police allegedly found on his computer.

Peer-to-peer file sharing was initially popularized for sharing music, which is often downloaded for free and in violation of relevant copyright laws. Now, it enjoys a broader audience, and users can find and share images, video, and audio files. For that reason, peer-to-peer file sharing software has become a main method of trading pornography, including child pornography. The users do not typically have any contact with one another; instead, a user can simply browse or search for the type of media he wants to view. If another user has matching files in his 'shared' folder, the software will allow the searching user the download the media files directly from the second user. Law enforcement officials and music executives alike have found the files difficult to track in part due to the pervasiveness of the software.

The sheriff's office anticipates forthcoming child pornography possession arrests in addition to Aguiar's, although it is not clear if any of the anticipated arrests involve file-sharing or the sharing of any of the files Aguiar is accused of having in his possession.

The worst nightmare of most parents is to have a missing child. Every year, thousands of children, aged birth to 18 years, are reported missing to law enforcement agencies. High profile abduction cases, such as those of Jimmy Ryce Elizabeth Smart have fueled the fears of parents and caretakers, and possibly led to a false perception of how infrequently child abduction by strangers actually occurs.

When children are reported missing, it could be for several reasons: running away, parental abandonment, abduction by a family member, abduction by a stranger, being lost, an injury, sexual victimization, and false alarm situations in which there has been a miscommunication about the child's location. Abduction by a family member is the most common type of child abduction. These situations most commonly occur when the parents are in the process of separating or have already divorced. A parent may kidnap the child because he or she does not want to allow the child to go on a designated visit with the other parent (or alternatively, to have to return the child following such a visit) or even simply to be spiteful towards the other parent. Occasionally, a stranger will abduct a small child - usually a baby - for the purposes of rearing it as her own. These heavily publicized cases often occur after a woman fakes a pregnancy; she then stages a kidnapping of a newborn in the generally misguided belief that others will think she gave birth to the child.

Sex crimes, especially child sex offenses, concern parents throughout Florida. The likelihood of a child being abducted for purposes of rape or molestation and murder are slim, but not impossible. Nationally, between 200 and 300 children are abducted into situations in which their lives are at risk. More, however, become the victims of sex crimes, whether or not the child was actually abducted.

If you have been accused of a sex crime in the Florida, contact the statewide criminal attorneys at Musca Law.

Jeffrey Grinder, 32, and Calvin Adams, 39, have both been convicted of murder. Each is serving a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole in a facility in Grady, Arkansas. The pair recently hatched and executed a plan to escape from prison, although they were only briefly successful. The men likely figured that because they had already received life sentences for violent crimes, they did not have anything to lose (as escaping from prison cannot carry a sentence greater than the one which had already been imposed).

The Grady prison facility inmates make the uniforms prison guards wear, in addition to other tasks. Grinder and Adams apparently realized that they could secretly don the guards' uniforms and slip out of the prison unnoticed. They arranged with three other people who were not in prison to leave them a car parked in the parking lot of the prison and set out to make their plan work.

Last Friday night, the men stayed in the prison's library until about 6:00, when they secretly changed from their standard-issue inmate clothing to the guard uniform. They knew that the guards changed shifts at that time and the inmates suspected their presence was least likely to be noticed then as they left the building. They were correct.

Grinder and Adams acted natural and walked past a number of guards. Many were getting off of their shifts, but several were assigned to guard the doors and watch for any inmates. Five of those guards have been placed on unpaid leave while the state investigates their failure to stop the two men. The inmates set off in the car that had been left for them and drove away. Eventually, however, New York police caught up with the duo after the car failed to signal properly. The police chased the inmates, ultimately taking them into custody.

The Police are called to a local bar after a drunken patron refuses to leave the location. Management states that the bar fly was thrown out of the establishment when his behavior turned belligerent and violent. When the Police arrived on the scene, they observed the suspect acting out in an erratic and aggressive manner.

The Defendant was shirtless, screaming profanities and throwing his arms in the air as if provoking a fight. After noticing the Police, the Defendant became even more agitated and started kicking a glass entry door to the bar.

An Officer pulled the suspect aside in an attempt to calm him down. During their interaction, the Officer took notice that the Defendant's arms and face were covered in fairly fresh abrasions that were just beginning to scab over. After inquiring about the scrapes, the Defendant told Police that he was involved in a fight downtown the night before. During conversations with the Officer, the Defendant would not lower his voice.

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